Whew! What a week it was last week… Last Wednesday, I brought pal and photog instructor guru Zack Arias into my studio for another episiode of chasejarvisLIVE. We chatted photography for 2 hours and took questions from the live Twitter audience via #cjlive. Was a blast. While about 20,000 of you caught the interview LIVE–it seemed like I got at least that many tweets/emails/fbook requests to post it again here on the blog, so… As you wish. Here ’tis.
From there, we shipped Zack and his crew into our creativeLIVE studio where he put on one heckuva studio lighting course all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Hopefully you saw the interwebs booming, especially with the @creativeLIVE and #askzack tags. I’m pretty sure Zack swiped some ratings from the World Cup. Or at least we had fun trying. I wanted to give a huge shoutout to Zack and his team for an amazing effort. You guys and gals nailed it. Also a shoutout also to all the manufacturers that kicked in gear for Zack to give away, as well as uber thanks to B&H Photo Video for their support of the creativeLIVE studio and G-Technology for keeping our gobs and gobs of data safe. They support us, please support them. I hope lots of you tuned in. And if you didn’t but wished you had, the course is available for download here.
While I’ve got you, I wanted to ask for your feedback. Not somebody else’s…YOURS. In the comments below, we’re looking to find out a few things with the goal of making creativeLIVE the best it can be. Tell us whatever you want, but please help us by answering some or all of the following particulars about our LIVE, free, worldwide creative education platform:
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
2. Where do you live? We want to understand the breadth of our audience with the comments on this post. Where are you from, and when are you watching the LIVE feed?
3. Does this live worldwide format really work? This is the important part. What does the experience feel like to you? Can you help describe this format to someone who’s never seen it?
Thanks for taking the time! If you’re new here, I invite you to subscribe/follow via links above and to the right. Lots more stuff heading your way soon on all our channels…
1. I don’t know how it compares to others as I have never attended a workshop in person before. What I can say is that I really like the way it is done. It is real and natural. It is as if I am seated in the room with the other participants.
2. I live in the northern part of Norway (the land of midnight sun and northern lights!). I am really happy about the reruns of the workshop. That way I don’t have to stay up till 3 am three nights in a row…
3. I think I covered this in part 1. Yes, it works! In describing it to someone else I would say that it is almost “just” like being there in person. You can see and hear everything, and you can even ask questions. Unless you’re there in person it can’t get any better than that!
Thanks a lot Chase and Zack (and everyone else at creativeLIVE) and keep up the good work 🙂
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
I believe the format and approach are exceptional. The idea is truly a game changer. I believe in giving back to the community and this would appear to be a great model providing free instruction and paid archival viewing which I hope supports the the instructors, creative live staff, and supporting infrastructure. If anything, I would say 79.00 for three days of instruction post broadcast is too cheap and I hope it does not devalue the photographer. This is where economies and revenue at scale come into play and I hope the math works for all involved.
I have noticed some minor issues with the creative live website, though I have addressed those directly.
2. Where do you live? We want to understand the breadth of our audience with the comments on this post. Where are you from, and when are you watching the LIVE feed?
Atlanta, Ga EST. Normally the events are challenging to watch during the time periods broadcast as they fall in awkward scheduling times in the EST (eg during commuting hours and midday weekends). Of course ordering these courses for such a value price makes this a non issue sans the feeling of a “live event” and interactivity after the fact.
3. Does this live worldwide format really work? This is the important part. What does the experience feel like to you? Can you help describe this format to someone who’s never seen it?
First off – having attended a Zarias 1 Day Onelight workshop, this creative live workshop exceeded even that experience. I believe having a live audience as well as manned twitter and chatroom spotters helped make the remote viewer experience feel more interactive and hands on. I found myself wanting to “Tivo” moments during the presentation either to pause for bio breaks or to replay a point of interest. Would be nice to be able to route through Apple TV or some such device. Of course, purchasing the course eliminates this for later viewing sessions.
I don’t mean to come across as too much of a fan boy, but I can’t say it any other way. CreativeLive was awesome. I can’t believe how much good stuff there was, especially for the price!! Zack was a great teacher, knowledgeable, personable, easy to understand and follow, and it was a really great studio to shoot in.
I was really worried about watching it live beforehand, as my internet connection is terrible, but it actually worked amazingly well. The video and audio were both excellent quality, and the streaming was virtually stutter free for me. Being able to ask questions via twitter, as it happened, was great.
Basically great production quality and great course material. It was almost as good as being actually there.
I can’t wait to sit down and watch the downloads again now. And I can’t wait to see some other workshops.
From Columbus, Ohio I caught bits of a few lessons but pretty much watched of of Zack Aria’s. He did great by the way and I was amazed at the juggling act he had going on at times. I had to lay down and take a nap after watching how hard he (and the entire crew) worked.
I would love to see a how to get your photo business from concept to bringing in clients class. Or maybe some photo business type classes. As a photojournalist who was recently laid off I’d love persue a studio/lifestyles career but I’m not sure where to even begin.
CreativeLive has been great for those who can catch it on the times off work but it seems most of the classes always fall when I’m busy working. The price is reasonable but I wish I could see a bit of what was in the classes to make me want to buy the entire day(s) class videos.
The content has been good and I’m liking the approach to most of it. Zack’s teach, explain again, take questions and reteach method seemed pretty good and I pickedup a few ideas from his approach with models.
The worldwide format works fairly well as far as I can tell. The questions from around the world are often pertinent to what is being taught. I didn’t spend any time in chat though.
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
Warren: The content is the driver; the flexibility is what makes it work for me. I’ve “attended” two of the sessions – Scott’s Aperture 3 and the DSLR video course – and was able to listen live to portions. It’s a big time commitment, and while the live/free is great, having the ability to buy the sessions means I don’t get stressed if I do have to miss one or more sessions.
2. Where do you live? We want to understand the breadth of our audience with the comments on this post. Where are you from, and when are you watching the LIVE feed?
Warren: Vancouver BC, Canada. Watching the feeds from a variety of locations. I travel a lot with my job, and having the flexibility to get them after-the-fact makes this format viable.
3. Does this live worldwide format really work? This is the important part. What does the experience feel like to you?
Warren: The “live” format has been good so far. There have been some growing pains with hardware and/or connectivity issues, but I imagine that’s something you’ll work through as you do more of these. The live audience is good, but you do need to do some filtering between the questions that get asked (both live and from the chat roooms) and what makes it onto the stage. While I appreciate not everyone will be at the same level, it’s critical to keep the questions on topic, and not drag us off on tangents, or into answering questions that most people already know. Keep the level high, and the value is that much greater.
Can you help describe this format to someone who’s never seen it?
Warren: I think the concept is very easy to explain, which is why it works.